Weekend tech reading: Google punishes sites for DMCA takedowns

Google will penalize sites repeatedly accused of copyright infringement Has someone filed a large number of DMCA "takedown" requests against your site? If so, look out. That's the latest penalty that may cause you to rank lower in Google's search results. It joins other penalties such as "Panda" and "Penguin." We're dubbing it the "Emanuel Update" in honor of Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel, who helped prompt it. Search Engine Land

Those 27-inch IPS displays from Korea are for real If you frequent our forums or other PC enthusiast-focused corners of the web, you may have heard the whispers about the new breed of monitors being sold in Korea under various brand names for astonishingly low prices. They sound almost too good to be true: expansive 27" displays at the formidable resolution of 2560x1440 selling for peanuts, between $300 and $400, well under half the price of a similar display from the likes of Dell. The Tech Report

What happened to LendInk? The owner responds. LendInk is no more. The site, which matched up people who wanted to loan or borrow e-books, featured an easy-to-use interface (see screenshot, below). When a match was made, the parties were sent to Amazon or BarnesAndNoble.com to complete the e-book loan. Loaning certain Kindle books in this manner is allowed per the Amazon lending terms and the rights outlined by the publisher. Here's how the Amazon help page describes the arrangement: The Digital Media Machine

Apple's original software construction kit: HyperCard turns twenty-five years old today Twenty-five years ago today, HyperCard was released at Macworld Expo Boston. Apple's software construction kit for the rest of us began shipping on every new Mac as of August 11, 1987; you could also buy it for $49. It required 1 MB of memory (yes, one megabyte) and a pair of 800K floppy drives, or one floppy drive + a hard disk. (Announced at the same time: the ImageWriter LQ, the Apple Fax Modem, and MultiFinder.) Times have indeed changed. TUAW

uTorrent becomes ad-supported to rake in millions With well over 125 million active users a month uTorrent is by far the most used BitTorrent client. Because of its success the software is also the main source of revenue for San Francisco based parent company BitTorrent Inc. It is estimated that the company currently generates between $15 and $20 million in annual revenue but this figure is expected to rise after it was quietly announced that uTorrent will become ad-supported. TorrentFreak

Cyborg America: inside the strange new world of basement body hackers Shawn Sarver took a deep breath and stared at the bottle of Listerine on the counter. "A minty fresh feeling for your mouth... cures bad breath," he repeated to himself, as the scalpel sliced open his ring finger. His left arm was stretched out on the operating table, his sleeve rolled up past the elbow, revealing his first tattoo, the Air Force insignia he got at age 18, a few weeks after graduating from high school. The Verge

Raging bulls: How Wall Street got addicted to light-speed trading One of the most interesting things about the catastrophe at Knight Capital Group—the trading firm that lost $440 million this week -- is the speed of the collapse. News reports describe the bulk of the bad trades happening in less than an hour, a computer-driven descent that has the financial community once again asking if its pursuit of profits has led to software agents that are fast yet dumb and out of control. Wired

The perfect desktop - Linux Mint 13 XFCE This tutorial shows how you can set up a Linux Mint 13 (Maya) desktop (with the XFCE desktop) that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. HowtoForge

How Google's stealth support is buoying Samsung in Apple fight Google may have kept a low profile amid the legal clashing between Samsung Electronics and Apple, but the company hasn't abandoned its Android partners. Rather, Google has been quietly lending support, coordinating with Samsung over legal strategies, providing advice, doing extra legwork, and searching for prior evidence, CNET has learned from people familiar with the situation. CNET

My life as a telecommuting robot I was strolling down the hall to a meeting on a Wednesday afternoon when I suddenly blacked out, coming to a halt. Stopping by a colleague's desk to say hello, I never saw the Nerf ball he aimed at my cranium. Later, when an editor absently patted my head as he passed by, I crashed to the floor. Thus went my short, eventful life as QB-82, a wheeled, skinny robot that can reach a height of more than six feet. The WSJ

The surprising, stealth rebirth of the American arcade The arcade industry is dead in the United States -- everyone knows it -- done in by a combination of rapidly advancing home consoles and rapidly expanding suburbanization in the late '80s and early '90s. The only people not in on this bit of conventional wisdom are the ones who happen to be opening a surprising number of successful new arcades around the country. Ars Technica

Chief financial officer of OCZ set to leave the company OCZ Technology Group said this week that Arthur F. Knapp, 63, chief financial officer, announced his intent to retire from the company. Mr. Knapp will remain as CFO until his successor is in place and then provide ongoing support to help ensure a seamless transition. "After more than eight years at the company, I have decided that it is the right time to retire..." X-bit Labs

So long, silicon: Researchers create solar panels from cheap copper oxide Researchers from the University of California and Berkeley Lab have discovered a way of making photovoltaic cells out of any semiconducting material, not just beautiful, expensive crystals of silicon. In principle, this could open the doors to much cheaper solar power. ExtremeTech